


Rapid Boiling

by mekana47



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alpha Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Ambiguous Genitals, Consent is Sexy, Drug-Induced Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:33:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mekana47/pseuds/mekana47
Summary: “Tell me you’re not inducing a heat,” Nicky demands. He can’t see what’s happening from where he’s shackled on the opposite wall, but they’ve been in this situation often enough to know that’s the most likely outcome. “He gets so grumpy when someone messes with his cycle.”-or-The Bad Guy of the Month decides Joe's heat will make Nicky talkative, but they're both stronger than this man can even imagine.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 50
Kudos: 554





	Rapid Boiling

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, so feel free to point out my typos.

No matter how old Joe gets, he’ll never be able to stop the way his whole body tenses when a captor pulls out a syringe.

“What is that?” Nicky demands.

Murphy hums and taps the syringe in his palm. 

Joe wants to roll his eyes at the cliched villain show. He wants to check if Nicky’s mouth is pinching the way it usually does when someone ignores perfectly valid questions. He can’t tear his eyes away from the syringe.

Two men fall on either side of Murphy before all three of them approach Joe. It’s the smartest thing they’ve done in the last hour.

The concrete floor has made Joe’s ass go numb and the shackles holding his wrists to the wall keep his arms stretched at an annoying height, but he’d nearly bitten off the finger of the first man to try interrogating him. He’d broken someone’s nose at the first warehouse before the explosion had knocked out he and Nicky long enough for them to get caught.

One of the lackeys catches Joe’s foot and pins it to the floor. Joe twists, trying to get enough momentum while seated to fling his other foot at the man’s head, but the second lackey is quick. They pin his ankles and don’t come any closer.

“Let’s see if this gets you more talkative, omega.” Murphy nudges Joe’s pants from his ankle and triggers the spring-action syringe into the meat of his calf.

“Tell me you’re not inducing a heat,” Nicky demands. He can’t see what’s happening from where he’s shackled on the opposite wall, but they’ve been in this situation often enough to know that’s the most likely outcome. “He gets so grumpy when someone messes with his cycle.”

Murphy moves back three steps before the lackeys dare let go of Joe’s ankles. 

“I do not.” Joe gets a hard kick to one of their calves, but the man doesn’t flinch.

“I’ll leave you two to stew a bit longer.” The smugness in Murphy’s voice gives the same answer as the uncomfortable warmth already traveling up Joe’s leg.

Once Joe and Nicky are left with just the camera in the corner for company, Joe sighs and shifts his legs as best he can, trying to find a somewhat comfortable position to ride this out. Fuck, he hates induced heats.

“Joe?” 

Nicky’s voice makes him shiver. The warmth has spread across his limbs, pooling in his abdomen. Nicky must smell the artificial chemical scent on top of Joe’s own sweaty musk. 

“I hate induced heats,” Joe mutters.

Nicky’s soft sound of amusement makes his dick twitch. 

The heat’s ramping up quickly, and there’s no way to know just how ferocious or long it’s going to drag on. Murphy seemed certain that one of them will break and tell him whatever he wants before the heat’s over, so Joe’s not holding out hope for an easy one.

Joe’s had rough heats before though.

“Fucking kingpins,” he mutters.

He tips his head back against the wall, trying to imagine the cool concrete cutting through the sweat building in his hair and on the nape of his neck.

“Why didn’t I get rid of my womb when I had a chance?”

Nicky snorts, and Joe’s hackles go up before he forcefully reminds himself that none of this is Nicky’s fault. 

Well, if Nicky hadn’t been so close to the blast, maybe… but no. 

He isn’t being fair.

Besides, his womb would just grow back, still achingly empty and demanding a baby even though he’s been infertile since his first death. His body’s never understood that. All it wants is Nicky in him, Nicky on him, pressing those gentle kisses to his jaw while his cool hands soothe Joe’s tremors. Usually Joe’s completely on board with his body’s demands and the way Nicky makes it something to look forward to together.

“Hayati,” he says on a breath, aching for Nicky’s hands, his skin, anything. 

He rocks his hips against nothing. The pressure of his fly isn’t anywhere close to satisfying. 

He hates going through a heat in clothes.

Nicky makes another soft sound, so he must’ve said that aloud. Losing control of what’s a thought and what’s said this early is definitely a bad sign for the strength of this drug cocktail.

“Focus,” Nicky says as if it’s that easy, as if Nicky isn’t also dying to cross the space, to press their skin together, to burn this heat out of him however they can. “You’ve done this before. You know what you’re doing.”

Joe shudders and swallows as much as he can when his mouth feels full of sand.

He drops his head forward, panting roughly as a bolt of desire threatens to swamp him. He can feel his pulse against his zipper, measured with each time his cock throbs and twitches, and Nicky is right there, close enough to smell how much Nicky wants him, close enough that all of Joe’s instincts are straining for his mate. He aches to stroll over and climb in his lap, taking Nicky in him like it’s nothing.

But Nicky’s right. He does have better control than this.

He groans. “Why do you have to be logical at a time like this?”

“Part of my charm,” Nicky says, but his voice has gone rougher too.

Joe doesn’t dare look at him, but his traitorous mind drifts to the way Nicky’s pupils always blow wide when Joe’s in heat. His hair sticks up erratically where he runs his hands through it, restless in a way Joe rarely sees him. 

His body starts producing slick for his mental picture, one he’s sketched from memory many times, and Joe viciously refocuses, letting his irritation be a distraction. How dare yet another egomaniacal bastard with more power than sense try to use his body against him, turning something wonderful he shares with Nicky into a torturous show for their own personal benefit. 

The first cramp makes him double over as far as the shackles will let him move. The pain is always more intense than he remembers after getting to have Nicky for so many heats in a row.

“You’re doing well,” Nicky murmurs.

Joe whines and clinches down on nothing. “Nico, babe, you have to stop talking now. I can’t—”

Nicky doesn’t respond, and Joe can only be grateful. 

He anticipates the second cramp and rides out the pain. The predictability is almost steadying, and he forces himself to take a slow breath in and blow it out just as slowly. 

His eyes slip closed with a groan. He presses his head against the wall, cooler now compared to the unwavering heat of his own skin. The room falls away. Nicky’s scent becomes a familiar comfort and a tease.

The itch of sweat in his beard is a minor nuisance. The way he’s dampening his underwear is a rare sensation. The heat burning from his cheeks is little more than the hot days crossing the desert with Nicky so long ago.

The desperation disappears, and Joe drifts.

When the door opens, Joe snaps back to awareness at the smell of an alpha not Nicky. He bares his teeth with a snarl, though the threat’s ruined when he’s forced to try to blink the sweat out of his eyes as best he can without his hands.

“It smells ripe in here.” Murphy moves so he’s directly between Nicky and Joe, deliberately cutting off their view of one another, as if that’ll be enough to break them. “Are you ready to cooperate yet?”

Nicky doesn’t answer. Joe suspects he won’t speak again until they’re rescued.

As long as Murphy doesn’t advance, he’s just another distraction for Joe to ignore, and if he does? Joe’s fought in the middle of his heat before.

“Tell me,” Murphy says, nonplussed, “who hired you to take out that warehouse?”

When neither of them answers, Murphy hums and turns to study Joe. “Have the cramps started yet? I can see how badly you want an alpha in you. Can smell your slick from here. Are you in pain, omega?”

Joe’s breath bursts out of his mouth in something too rough to be a laugh.

Murphy cocks his head. “Give me a name and I’ll let you have your alpha, if that’s what you want.”

Joe bites back a whimper as more wetness leaks out of him. Of course he wants Nicky, but if Murphy thinks he has all the information he needs from them, he might decide to try killing them and that’s a complication they don’t need right now. 

Besides, if Nile and Andy search in a spiral out from the warehouse that blew up, they should be here soon.

He hopes they’ll be here soon.

Joe swallows, “We have no name to give you.”

Murphy’s eyebrows shoot up before he can school his face again. Every century has far too many alphas who’ve never met an omega who can stay coherent through a heat. It’s little surprise Murphy is one of them.

“What about you?” Murphy turns to Nicky. “Are you such a shitty excuse for a mate that you’re going to let him suffer through his heat alone? You care more about your boss than stopping his cries as he contracts around nothing? You know how easily you could stop his pain. This room reeks of the both of you, but I haven’t seen you do anything to show you deserve an omega at all.”

Nicky doesn’t respond, but that doesn’t mean it comes easily. He must be aching with helplessness. Murphy picked this method of torture for a reason. He doesn’t care which of them breaks first.

The next cramp feels like someone is scraping out his empty womb with a grapefruit spoon, but Joe’s had worse pain before. He will again, and once this is over, Nicky will take care of him. There’s never any doubt.

“That one smelled like it hurt,” Murphy says, idly.

Joe startles, though his body’s already unconsciously preserving his energy. He’d forgotten how his pain must be stinking up the room. Something like pride swells in his chest for how hard Nicky must be fighting to do the one thing that eases Joe’s pain even a little. 

“They always do,” Joe says once he feels steadier. 

Murphy makes a condescending disappointed sound, like he’s never met someone as stupid as he finds Joe.

Joe focuses on his breathing, the roughness of the wall behind him, the brief press of his nails into his palm, anything that can anchor him to the moment. They’re pale replacements for the way Nicky can keep him anchored just by being, but focus is easier now that his heat has stopped escalating. This is his body now, and it has to be acceptable.

He blinks up at Murphy and finds the man studying him.

“Make me understand,” Murphy says. “What is the point of denying yourself such pleasures, hmm? Is your alpha such a poor lover that you’d rather suffer through your heat alone?”

“Never,” Joe says immediately. His eyes dart toward Nicky, forgetting that the view is blocked, but he’s grateful for it. That was a risky lapse. “But sometimes the wait is worth it.”

Murphy’s head jerks back. 

Joe’s tempted to tell him all the ways Nicky takes care of him, how he wrings more pleasure from Joe’s body than he’d ever thought possible, and what Nicky will do for him as soon as they’re free. Those declarations would only add to their torture.

“This is a game to you?” Murphy chooses each word carefully.

“Something like that.”

“And when you reach your breaking point and you’re both still chained to my walls, what will you do then?”

Joe’s smile is sharp. “Play a little longer.” 

He’s not enough of a fool to believe Murphy will unchain either of them no matter what he says. Murphy’s a dangerous man, but he’s smart enough to realize he only has an advantage because they’re contained. Letting one of them loose is an unnecessary risk when he can simply lie to them about a reward.

Murphy puts his hands on his hips. “Perhaps a second injection will change your mind.”

Joe half-shrugs in his bindings and ignores an ill-timed gush of slick that all of them must be able to smell. “I doubt it.”

Murphy’s eyes narrow, and Joe can see the hint of the man who’s scared everyone in this city, but Joe’s faced worse and won. Murphy turns back to Nicky. With the attention off him, Joe gives into the urge to shift, his skin so uncomfortable he doesn’t know if he wants to be touched all over or never be touched again. 

“No name?” Murphy asks Nicky. He must get some response Joe doesn’t see or maybe he’s annoyed that Nicky isn’t shouting and snarling a steady stream of information to get to Joe, because he clicks his tongue. “I’ve never tried two injections on an omega before. Let’s see what that does.”

He strides for the door, and Joe’s too slow to realize the movement will reveal Nicky to him. Nicky’s drawn his knees up to his chest, and his lip looks bitten red despite their healing. His hair sticks up where he must have been rolling his head against the wall, and when they lock eyes—

There’s no doubt how badly he wants Joe.

Joe whines before he can catch himself and another bead of pre-cum soaks into his underwear. It takes all his willpower to look at the bland concrete floor instead.

Murphy hums, and Joe jumps. He’d assumed the man was leaving, but he must’ve just ordered someone else to get the injection. 

A fine tremor starts in Joe’s arms, and he cannot stop the movement. Another cramp hits, and he breathes through the pain. 

It will pass. They always pass.

Murphy crosses to him, stopping just in front of Joe’s feet where they can’t stop shifting restlessly on the floor. He studies Joe’s face. 

“What?” Joe asks finally, because it seems to unsettle Murphy more when he proves he hasn’t been rendered speechless. “Never seen an omega in heat before?”

Murphy snarls but doesn’t make a mistake. Joe won’t be able to free himself from these shackles anyway, but it might make him feel better to lash out.

“I was just wondering how cocky you’d be” –Murphy draws out each word, making it clear he’s in charge of this show— “if I do this?”

He skirts to one side of Joe, watching Joe’s feet and staying clear of his restrained arm. His hand reaches out, unhesitant but he’s still clearly wary of Joe’s teeth, and caresses the mating mark on Joe’s neck.

Joe jolts like he’s been electrocuted, gasping as his concentration’s ripped away in a tidal wave of heat and the desperate need to be with Nicky. His trembles become convulsive shakes, and he scrunches his eyes so hard tears spring forward.

Nicky snarls something low and dangerous from the other side of the room. The words don’t matter, but the tone is enough to flay Joe open.

He’s burning from the inside, and his mind is overrun with _NickyNickyNicky_.

He gasps for air, curling up only to kick his feet out over and over, erratic and overwhelmed.

“Give me a name,” Murphy’s voice demands, too close. “Just one name, and you can have him.”

Joe shakes his head and can’t stop, grinding his skin against the rough wall. He grits his teeth, fighting to hold back the whine that threatens, fighting to get his breath under control. He can do this, for himself and for Nicky. He’s more than just instincts and desperation.

He finally catches a breath, catching the scent of Murphy and the wrongness of the situation, and he clings to it. His face feels hot enough to boil the tears winding into his beard. His pants are soaked with slick and pre-cum and sweat. Slowly, he forces each muscle to relax, his legs flopping to the floor and his breaths measured and careful. 

Then another cramp hits.

He doubles over with a breathless gasp. Murphy doesn’t get the satisfaction of his sounds, and he’s not going to make this harder on Nicky. He will endure.

Murphy grunts, and his hand comes toward Joe again. 

Bleary and on edge, Joe snaps his teeth at those vulnerable fingers. He’s nowhere close to contact, but Murphy still jerks back.

The kick to Joe’s ankle barely permeates the fog of pain, heat, and desire. 

The knock on the door is a little clearer, and dread sharpens his thoughts even more. A second dose could have no effect at all, but the possibility this could get twice as bad makes Joe’s resolve waver. It’d be so easy to stop fighting and let the heat steal his coherency until they have a solution.

But that would make Nicky suffer even more, and that’s worse than staying alert.

The bang of a gunshot snaps Joe back to the room.

Murphy flies from the door and lands sprawled across the floor. The sharp tang of his blood fills the room, but Joe stays locked on the door. Moving is too much effort, and he needs to know.

Nile steps in, and Joe feels nothing but relief. She clears the room and ducks back into the hallway.

“Wait,” Joe croaks, all the relief rushing out of him in an instant. Having an escape and losing it so quickly hurts worse than his next cramp.

Some indeterminate time later, Andy walks in, taking in the room and Murphy’s cooling body before she meets his gaze with a soft, “Oh, Joe.”

“Hey, boss.” His mouth feels gummy like dehydration might be setting in. “They fucked up my cycle.”

Andy shakes her head, somehow amused and concerned. “Are you hurt?” 

They both know what she’s really asking, and he’s not sure who she’s trying to protect by not asking outright.

“No.”

Nicky makes a derisive sound. Joe grunts, his chest heaving as another burst of hot slick joins the mess in his pants. He doesn’t risk looking at Nicky, not now that they’re safe. 

“No,” Joe repeats firmer. “Said if we talked, they’d let us be together.”

A tension runs out of Andy. It could’ve been so much worse, but they were lucky this time. 

“We can’t stay here,” she says.

Joe squeezes his eyes shut, panting as he struggles to focus. Resolute, he meets her gaze. “Guide me out.”

Nile steps beside Andy, and Joe twitches. When did she get back? She holds a set of keys and says, “Building’s clear for now.”

Andy crouches in front of Joe, blocking his view of Nicky, and something eases with the temptation to look taken away. Nicky’s scent is still the clearest thing in the room, but Andy’s is its own kind of comfort.

“You’re sure?” Andy asks.

“Make me go,” Joe says.

Nicky growls, and Joe’s feet scramble across the concrete fighting to spread for his mate, to entice Nicky into taking him right there, safety be damned. The movement stretches his pants over his painfully hard cock, and he bites back a whine, dizzy and shaking again. 

“Nicky, you’re not helping,” Andy snaps.

“Please,” Joe whispers, and he doesn’t know what he’s begging for, but he needs. He needs so badly. It’s like a dam has broken, and he can’t hold back the words anymore. “Please, please.”

A cool hand curls around his cheek, stopping the words but not providing any other relief.

“We’ve got you,” Andy murmurs, and one of his arms drops heavily in his lap, free of the restraint.

He takes a measured breath, trying to find that fragile not-quite-peaceful state again, but he’s shaking so hard it feels like his teeth are rattling.

“Joe,” Andy says in her most alpha voice. The demanding harshness is a familiar balm. The tone’s ingrained in his bones after all these centuries together. 

When Andy uses that voice, you obey her orders.

His other arm drops, and he can’t help rubbing his opposite forearms, trying to brush away the sweat, the goosebumps, the heat. It’s an instinctive nonsensical reaction and further proof he’s losing his grip on himself.

Someone tugs his elbow, and he lets himself be guided to standing. Far too much slick rushes down his thigh, but sandwiched between Andy and Nile’s strength, he lets himself be prodded along. 

When they reach the hallway, Nicky’s scent dims and Joe freezes. “Wait.”

He tries to pull out of their huddle, a desperate whine building in the back of his throat. He’s going the wrong way. His mate is behind him, promising an end to this pain, and Joe could have him right now. 

He should have him right now.

The arms around him do not budge except to keep urging him forward.

“It’s not safe here,” Nile says. “We’ll get you somewhere secure, okay? You’ll be alright, but we need to get some distance first. We’ve got you, Joe, but we have to keep moving.”

She keeps up the soft litany, and Joe’s need to go to Nicky wars with his urge to find somewhere safe to ride out his heat. Andy keeps a fierce grip on his forearm, pulling him forward at such a fast pace he has no time to decide. 

At the sight of an exterior door, Joe stumbles, dizzy and suddenly absolutely certain he shouldn’t cross that doorframe without Nicky. Never mind his heat, they’d just left Nicky tied up and vulnerable to their enemies.

“Nicky,” he chokes out, but Andy doesn’t let him fall. 

“We’ll be right behind you,” Andy says. “I swear it, Joe. I’ve got him.”

Joe groans, but he’s dragged out into the darkened parking lot. The air is blessedly cool on his heated skin even as he shivers violently.

Andy pulls him to a black car decades out of date and forces him into the passenger seat. The wet on his ass and thighs is disgusting enough to cut through his fog. 

“Boss?”

“Nile’s got you,” Andy says, and yes, Nile has appeared in the driver’s seat somehow. “We’ll meet you at the safehouse, I swear. Drink some water and try to eat something before you nest. We’ll be there as soon as we can be.”

Joe blinks heavily and nods. He feels blistered from the inside-out, and he’ll be sitting in his own fluids for the next thirty minutes, struggling against brutal cramps, but Andy’s in control. She’s never let him down before.

“Ignore whatever he calls you?” Joe asks, for Nicky’s sake, because he’s going to be close to feral when he’s confronted with the evidence that Joe’s already gone.

“Always do,” Andy says and closes the car door.

The drive is timeless. Nile keeps the radio on low and doesn’t try to draw him into a conversation. The air conditioning is just a little too cold on Joe’s skin, and the closed windows keeps Joe’s scent trapped inside with them. He doesn’t know how Nile can stand it, even as an omega herself.

He curses himself for leaving Nicky even while knowing it was the right call.

With only his circling thoughts to fill the time, he’s surprised when they pull up to the safehouse. He stares at the front door for several long seconds, trying to muster the motivation to make his exhausted body move. His abdomen and back ache fiercely. His legs have cramped with dehydration, and it’s not like Nicky’s there waiting for him.

When Nile opens his door, the fresh breeze clears his head a little. She catches Joe’s arm gently, but the contact feels wrong and almost painful on his oversensitive skin.

“Come on.” She pulls on his arm with just enough pressure he can’t deny the motion. “Water, food, nest.”

Joe twists in the seat and stretches his legs to the pavement. They’re going to have to burn the car after this. He presses up, clutching the doorframe as his vision wavers and the wind ripples through his hair. It’s all too much.

Nile guides him into the house and keeps his feet under him when the traces of Nicky’s scent make his gut twist. 

“Ok, new plan,” she murmurs. “You nest. I’ll bring food and water.”

“Good plan,” Joe says, his voice thick and dry.

Nile leads him to the bedroom he and Nicky had claimed for the duration of the job. The stronger scents and the sight of the bed make him weak in the knees in a different way.

“Will you be alright for a moment?” Nile asks.

Joe nods, clinging to the doorframe and staring at the bed. Nile doesn’t move from his side, so he drags his eyes to hers. “Yes.”

She waits another long moment before turning away. 

Joe contemplates the bed again before changing the plan. He stumbles to the shared bathroom, strips off his damp, sticky clothes, and steps under the cool shower spray. He won’t stay clean for long, but a cursory rinse and a slightly long scrub of his genitals does wonders for his mood. He coats his contaminated claiming mark in soap three times and almost does it a fourth, but Nile shouldn’t have to come looking for him.

He towels off roughly and barely remembers to gather his dirty clothes before stumbling back to the bedroom naked. He shoves the clothes in a corner and pulls on a pair of loose shorts that will probably be soaked through soon enough.

The bed draws his attention again. He strips off the blankets, shoving one along the side wall and one where a headboard would be if this safehouse had more than bare basic furnishings. He’s not usually one to make a nest when he’s in heat, but little has been usual about this heat. He lifts Nicky’s pillow, and the scent plumes in the air, a relief and an agony of its own.

The cramp makes him drop to the bed for fear of falling entirely.

Nile taps on the door as she enters, but she stays near the door as he stares at the ceiling, breathing through the pain. After too long, the pain leeches away, and he says, “You can come closer.”

Nile comes to stand over the bed, carefully not touching without explicit permission. 

“You can sit,” Joe says with some amusement. Even if it weren’t common for omegas to curl close from time to time, Joe would’ve let her in. They’re family, and it’s Nile. No other reason’s needed.

Nile perches on the edge of the bed and passes over a water bottle, the cap loosened. 

The cold condensation feels like it burns his palm, but Joe manages to press up enough and down half the bottle without spilling a drop. Nile takes it back and passes him a bag of trail mix.

Joe grunts annoyance at the bag. He doesn’t want to eat. He doesn’t want much of anything right now beyond Nicky, but he needs the calories. He needs the salt too. He scoops up a handful and focuses on chewing rather than the taste. 

He finishes a third of the bag and the rest of the bottle. 

Nile puts the trail mix on the nightstand and sets the empty bottle with the large collection of full ones she left on the floor. “Need anything else right now?”

Joe reaches out and holds her hand loosely. This time the contact is soothing, even if it isn’t enough. “Thank you.”

Nile makes a surprised sound but doesn’t brush him off. “How are you still so coherent?”

Joe snorts. He certainly doesn’t feel coherent, but he gets what she means. Movies and porn like to show omegas as mindless with need, out-of-control, and willing to jump the first alpha who gets near them. “Practice.”

Nile nods slowly, squeezing his fingers gently. “Something you pick up over the centuries…”

“No.” Joe pushes up on the pillows so he can look at her more directly. “Something anyone can pick up if they know it’s a possibility and they’re willing to put up with the time and pain it takes to practice.”

Nile frowns.

“Not something you’ve been taught?”

She shifts, uncomfortable now. “Yeah, well, American sex education isn’t exactly known for its accuracy.” 

Joe squeezes her hand. “When a heat comes on naturally, the slow way, it’s even easier to keep control. I can tell you more? After?”

Nile smiles, “I look forward to it.”

Andy’s snarling cadence reaches their ears from outside the building, pitched louder than normal. Keys hit the pavement, and she snaps, “Nicky.”

“That’s my cue. We’ll bring food by later.” Nile pulls her hand free and almost reaches out for his face before she seems to think better of it. “Have fun.” 

She winks, and she’s gone.

Nicky’s stumbling steps and growing scent make Joe shift to set his feet on the floor. The sight of him, disheveled and wild, has Joe staggering forward, their bodies slamming together in the middle of the room. The kiss is frantic and needy, Joe’s hands fisting in Nicky’s hoodie. Slick trails down his clean thighs. 

He pulls back just enough to nose under Nicky’s jaw, mouthing at the skin without any goal or finesse. Nicky’s sweat is his favorite spice, and Joe cannot get enough.

“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky,” he mumbles, trembling as Nicky’s lust feeds his own.

“Can I?” Nicky asks, and Joe startles. 

For all Joe’s plastered to his front, stealing Nicky’s scent and leaving his own behind, Nicky’s arms are out wide, carefully restrained as he waits for permission to touch.

“Yes,” Joe hisses. “Of course, please.”

One broad palm settles on Joe’s lower back, idly massaging the places he aches the most. The other slips under his waistband, resting on his ass with a casual possessiveness that makes Joe nip at Nicky’s jaw.

Cocooned in Nicky’s arms, Joe finally relaxes completely.

“Joe,” Nicky croaks, and nothing shifts in his hold but somehow it feels like he’s settled too.

Joe growls and scrapes his teeth against his claim mark on Nicky’s neck, enjoying the shudder that shakes them both.

“You did so good,” Nicky babbles. “Keeping control, waiting for the opportunity to get us out. You were magnificent.”

Joe whines, and his hips jerk forward with a rough grind that threatens to make him drop and present on the worn polyester carpet instead of their cozy bed.

“What do you want?” Nicky asks, because with Joe in his arms, he has the discipline to let Joe call the shots, to let him explain what he’s craving this time.

But Joe’s already talked so much today.

“Take care of me,” he murmurs. “Make me feel good.”

“A given,” Nicky says, dropping a kiss on the side of his head. “How?”

Joe shakes his head in the crook of Nicky’s neck. Nicky leans back, twisting to see his face, but Joe tightens his grip and whines, high and loud.

“Ok,” Nicky says. “I’ve got you.”

“Please,” he murmurs, trying to burrow his nose under Nicky’s hoodie.

“I’ve got you,” Nicky repeats.

Nicky does his best to keep them upright even as he tugs off Joe’s shorts and manhandles him up on the bed. If Nicky finds it odd that the bed’s become a half-hearted nest, he’s smart enough not to say anything.

Joe hardly has time to miss his touch before Nicky kneels against him, chest-to-chest, warm and naked and smelling like home. His hands race over Nicky’s back, and his mouth drops to a shoulder, tasting the skin with urgency.

“Lie back,” Nicky murmurs, and Joe groans not wanting to break contact for even a moment. It feels too good after being denied so long.

“Joe,” Nicky says, trying to sound chastising but it comes out too fond.

The cramp hits, brutal enough to steal Joe’s breath, and Nicky’s gentle touch isn’t enough to help.

Nicky makes a sound that’s all distress, and Joe can’t stand it.

He rolls onto his knees and crawls up the bed, throwing a heated look over his shoulder and reveling in the amused huff he gets in return. Joe lowers his chest and splays his hands, presenting for his alpha. His face is hot where it’s buried against the sheets, and his body won’t stop trembling.

“Want you,” he says, because Nicky should hear it. There’s a difference between his body deciding it needs something and Joe wanting to be with Nicky. This is undeniably both.

He jumps at the first touch but groans and goes pliant as the hand brushes from his hip to his ass. A thumb brushes through the slickness and teases at his hole, rubbing over it twice, three times before pressing in. There’s no resistance, and Nicky makes a sound full of awe.

Nicky growls and shuffles forward on his knees until he’s rubbing his dick in the same rough tease. Joe opens his mouth to beg, but Nicky’s already shifting forward, pressing in with a long smooth glide that makes them both groan. Hips flush, Nicky pauses and drapes himself over Joe’s back, scraping a hint of stubble across his shoulders and mouthing at his neck. 

“Move,” Joe says breathless.

Nicky licks Joe’s claim mark once, and Joe shatters. He jolts and clamps down, pressing firmly into Nicky’s chest, his body begging without words. Nicky shifts to take back some of his weight and sets the fast rhythm they’ve both been craving.

The strain in Joe’s abdomen finally fades as he loses himself to the hot slide of Nicky inside him. He clenches helplessly and braces his hands on the mattress to meet each thrust, frantically chasing his own pleasure. 

Neither of them is going to last long. Nicky’s hips snap forward with more desire than skill, but it’s everything they could want, and there’ll be plenty of time for better sex later.

The beginnings of Nicky’s knot presses deliciously against Joe’s hole, interrupting their pace, and Joe cries out, losing his grip on the sheets. 

Nicky falls still, pushing up off his hands to pet along Joe’s sweaty side, and says, half-wrecked, “Take it for yourself.”

Spreading his knees wider, Joe fists the sheets again and rocks back, swiveling his hips to take a little more of Nicky’s knot on each slide. The gentle touch and steady stream of encouraging noises keeps him from shoving back too quickly, but after a few more rocks, the knot slides in a filthy pop.

The fullness rips a whine from his throat. Having Nicky bound to him always feels right.

Nicky drops back to his hands and grinds his knot against Joe’s insides until they’re both trembling and fighting for air.

“Yusuf, let me feel you,” Nicky murmurs, shifting onto one hand. The other curls around Joe’s dick, his grip hard and relentless even as Joe’s own fluids eases the glide. 

Joe throws back his head, wailing and clenching on the still growing knot. He shudders almost violently, overwhelmed, and comes over Nicky’s fingers.

Nicky’s hand barely slows, milking Joe through his orgasm until Joe’s breath hitches and he clenches down with every stroke, trying to draw Nicky in even deeper. Nicky grunts, grinds deep twice more before his knot reaches its full-size.

“Nicolò,” Joe tries to say, but Nicky squeezes his cock again, and Joe loses all words.

Teeth sink into Joe’s shoulder smothering a deeply satisfied groan, and Nicky’s cock pulses deep inside him. Joe can’t feel the come filling him up, but knowing it’s there is enough.

His eyes slip closed as Nicky licks over the bite that’s probably already healing, but Joe’s in no hurry to move. Eventually, Nicky carefully shifts them to their sides, spooned up behind Joe in a position they use almost exclusively for heat sex.

“Needed that,” Joe murmurs.

Nicky snorts against the back of his head, nosing through his hair. His hand slides over Joe’s ribs and hip, restless in a way Nicky shouldn’t be when they’re still tied together and will be for a while yet.

“Nicky?” Joe asks, softly. He won’t risk hurting either of them trying to see his expression, but the urge is there.

Nicky hums a question. His hand slows but keeps gliding over Joe’s hip, around his abdomen, up his chest, and back down his side in an endless circuit.

“I’m here,” Joe says, nonsensically, and Nicky huffs.

Joe catches his hand on the next pass and pulls it to his chest. Nicky squeezes his fingers once before falling still. 

“You did so good,” Nicky says finally. “You held it together so well in there, taking everything that man was throwing at you, not getting ruffled, making the hard choice to get us to safety. I know I made it so much harder for you. I’m sorry.”

Joe relaxes into the cradle of Nicky’s arms. “You know I would’ve been a mess if he’d induced you instead.”

Nicky grunts something that’s neither confirmation nor denial, even though it has happened before. Joe had snarled such ferocious things their captors had ended up more afraid of him than the alpha they’d just put in a rut.

Joe massages between Nicky’s knuckles. “You know this. I can push down my own needs to keep you safe when I have to, but if you were the one hurting and I couldn’t get to you? I wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet for you.”

Nicky sighs.

“I asked an impossible thing of you,” Joe says, “and you did all you could for me. Thank you.”

Nicky brushes a kiss to the back of his neck, and Joe knows that’s all he’s going to get, for now at least. Sometimes Nicky clings to his guilt like he’s afraid of who he’ll become without it. 

“But next round?” Joe asks. “Bite my mark while I ride you?” 

Nicky growls, clearly fighting to keep still. The rumble is pleasant against Joe’s back, stirring the warmth in his groin. It’s far too early for another round, but this syrupy warmth is a pleasant balm after the blistering heat of his needs unmet.

“Anything you want,” Nicky promises, nosing back into his hair.

“Just you.” Joe presses a gentle kiss to Nicky’s knuckles. “Always you.”


End file.
